I didn't mean to take it literally. I'm criticising the rhetorical use, and I think it's common enough to consider a cliche. My objection to your argument is t

I didn't mean to take it literally. I'm criticising the rhetorical use, and I think it's common enough to consider a cliche. My objection to your argument is that (a) it applies everywhere. Public health, defense, education, rock and roll... all take away from poverty eradication efforts. (b) It's only true in the most abstract rhetorical sense. It doesn't tend to be true in a way that relates to reality. A culture with rock and roll isn't more likely to have more poverty. Closer to actionable reality, rock and roll, space exploration and poverty eradication don't meaningfully trade off against each other. They don't really compete for resources, except in the sense that everything competes with everything else. Is environmentalism the enemy of humanitarianism? If the frame is extreme marginalism, as it is in the "space vs homeless" cliche, the answer to that is yes. I don't think that's correct. You can have a society that is both. In fact, we do, to some extent.